


Thirty Years

by marourin, ourgirlfriday



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst, M/M, Minor Character Death, Serial Killers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-14
Updated: 2013-09-14
Packaged: 2017-12-26 13:28:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/966472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marourin/pseuds/marourin, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ourgirlfriday/pseuds/ourgirlfriday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thirty years ago, Charles was rookie FBI agent working working the case of a serial killer. Little does he know, this mysterious new killer is Erik Lensherr, the man he saved from drowning one day when he first got started.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thirty Years

**Author's Note:**

> A thousand thanks to Marourin for the fantastic prompt and art, and to afrocurl for the beta. Any remaining mistakes are my own.

 

 

 

As the front door slammed shut behind him, Charles Xavier realized that, for the first time in thirty years, there was no comfort to be found in the home he shared with his husband, Erik. His surroundings – the accumulated collection of miscellany testifying to over three decades of marriage – pressed down on him from all sides as he poured himself into a chair at the sturdy heirloom table that his sister Raven had given them as a wedding present so long ago.

The thoughtless reach for the phone in his breast pocket was automatic by now, muscle memory carrying him through the motions to call his husband. One less thing to think about, he supposed. A large novelty clock Erik had gotten him on one of his frequent camping trips, early in their relationship, ticked loudly in the background in time to his phone’s ring.

“Yes?” Erik’s voice sounded tinny and small through the inadequate speaker. Charles smiled at the warmth Erik’s voice conveyed in that one word. He hated himself a little, for that.

“Erik,” Charles answered, voice flat in his own numb ears. “Come home. We need to talk.” He didn’t wait for an answer before disconnecting. The clock ticked on in the background.

***

 _1980_  
They met by chance. Under circumstances remotely approaching normal, Charles wouldn’t have approached a man while on the job, and certainly not on his first day as a full-fledged agent. Not while he was surrounded by his colleagues at a murder scene on a rickety ferry, in the midst forensic experts collecting evidence and witnesses milling about in various stages of shock and boredom.

Charles had just finished interviewing a taciturn man in black when he heard shouting from the far side of the vessel. Agent MacTaggert gesticulated to something in the water, and called urgent instructions to nearby ferry workers and police officers. He spared a moment to give thanks that she was his partner as he ran to the railing beside her. The silhouette of a man struggling against the water faded in and out of visibility.

Ferry workers and police tried to follow him with weak lights while helicopters moved in overhead. Without giving thought to what he was doing, Charles vaulted over the side of the vessel into cold choppy water. Swimming to the man was the work of moments, though it felt much longer; however, when Charles tried to reach for him, he was almost pulled under the choppy surface by panicked arms.

“ _Calm your mind!_ ” Charles shouted, hoping he was audible over the sounds of the waves and water and police helicopters overhead. “ _You’re not alone_. Charles gripped the man under his arms like he was taught so long ago, and swam for shore. Slowly the fight drain from the man in his arms, and he hoped it was the result of realizing he was safe rather than any panicked faint or worse – the result of a too-tight grip on a body already wracked by fear.

He chanced a look to the man as he approached land, and was surprised to see large eyes peering at him. They widened when Charles made eye contact, and Charles felt an electric jolt course through his body. It wasn’t just that the man was handsome, although he was, incredibly so. It wasn’t just that he had saved the man’s life, either. There was just _something_ intriguing in the way the man held himself even in the water, in the unwavering directness of his gaze.

Rescue workers waded out and pulled Charles and the man to shore. The man looked dumbstruck as he reached for Charles.

“I thought I was alone.” His voice was gravely, possibly from shouting during his ordeal or from prolonged contact with the water. He kept his eyes trained on Charles, oblivious to the paramedics manhandling them into a waiting ambulance.

“Oh, my friend. You’re not alone,” Charles’s own voice was far quieter than he expected, one he more commonly employed to murmur sweet nothings into a pretty man’s ear. The man started when Charles grasped him on the shoulder, and looked at the point of contact between the two.

“You have beautiful eyes,” the man blurted. He seemed as shocked by the confession as Charles, not to mention the paramedics and officers within earshot. Still, it wasn’t every day that he had such an effect on anyone, let alone a handsome -- if unlucky -- stranger. A large grin bloomed over his face that he couldn’t try to stifle even if it was rather unprofessional. Charles caught Moira’s eye as she trudged over the sandy beach from the now docked ferry. He straightened his jacket and turned back to the man, trying to salvage any semblance of professionalism.

“You’ve been through a bit of an ordeal, Mister…”

“Lehnsherr,” the man supplied. “Erik Lehnsherr. Please, call me Erik.”

“Erik, then. I’m Detective Xavier. Charles. Would you mind if I asked you a few questions?”

“Anything.” This close it was hard to tell if Erik’s eyes were blue or green or gray, or some mixture of the three. Agent MacTaggert looked between them as she arrived and broke the moment.

“Xavier! Leave the CPR to the paramedics, we have a murder to solve here, remember?” she said, brow arched. Charles looked back to Erik, who was being swaddled in blankets by the ambulance workers.

“Here’s my card,” he muttered as he slipped the paper into Erik’s hand. “Call me sometime, to go over what happened. Anytime.” Erik grinned, wide and toothy.

“I think dinner might jog my memory,” Lehnsherr murmured low and urgently as Charles quirked a smile and started back towards the ferry. Detective Summers stepped forward to take notes on what Lehnsherr had to say and Charles walked back towards Moira. His hand was warm from where he had touched Erik.

That was how Charles Xavier met Erik Lehnsherr.

***

Erik called the next day. And the next. It felt incredibly daring, meeting a man and being swept off his feet so quickly, but soon it became routine. They’d meet up most nights after work, having dinner before spending the night at one or the other’s place. Charles felt like he’d known Erik all his life. They’d moved in together within six months. Charles had never been happier.

***

The first body was discovered six weeks later. A hunter had stumbled upon it in the woods. Decomposition and forest creatures had destroyed flesh and internal organs, leaving behind patches of clothing and desiccated skin, some matted hair on the scalp, and a badly preserved skeleton. The medical examiner estimated the cause of death to be from a stab wound or wounds based on marks found on the remains caused by a weapon in poor shape. No identity was ever established.

Charles wouldn’t have heard about it save his association with Janos Quested, a local police detective Charles sometimes met for lunch. He lent what small help he could, but the case quickly went cold.

A runner discovered the second body three weeks after the first, although at the time of course no one knew of the connection. She was found in the woods, not far off a rarely-used trail that Ms. Pride, the woman who found the body, used by happenstance. The victim was quickly identified as Emma Frost, a young woman with many connections to the city’s elite. She had been stabbed fifty-four times, blood and viscera staining her normally impeccable white suit dark rusty maroon. Her eyes had been removed inexpertly, and placed in her open hand.

It was chance, really, that connected Frost’s case to the unidentified victim. Ordinarily, the FBI wouldn’t have involved, not when it wasn’t a federal matter. There was no evidence to indicate the Bureau would have jurisdiction, and no cause for the agency to get involved, save the identity of the victim. If the Frosts wanted FBI involvement, they got FBI involvement.

The connection to the previously found body was made only because Charles overheard medical examiners at the scene talking about peculiarities with the wound patterns. The knife, one had said, was likely in terrible shape. Although they thought he was wasting time, Charles convinced the bureau to compare the wounds on Ms. Frost with the unidentified earlier victim.

The patterns left by the weapon were a match.

Charles and Moira worked the case to the best of their ability, but with no witnesses and no physical evidence leads were soon exhausted. Not even pressure from the Frosts or begging by her brother, Christian, could open new alleys of investigation. The closest they had to a description of the assailant was that a tall, slender, white man had been seen in the same area as Ms. Frost shortly before the murder occurred.

A third body was found the same day as Emma Frost, as officers combed the area looking for evidence. It had been in the woods longer than Frost, but the mode of death, the unchecked violence of his murderer, and the removal of the eyes were the same. His eyes were never found. The medical examiner theorized that an entrepreneurial animal had made dinner of them.

Steve Rogers, as the victim was identified, had gone missing three weeks previously after calling the police several times to report someone following him late at night. Rogers’s disappearance had been all over the news in no small part because his partner, Tony Stark, could afford full page ads in the papers begging for information and Steve’s safe return. Informing Mr. Stark – Tony – of Steve’s death was the hardest thing Charles had ever, to that point, had to do.

Charles would go home to Erik’s waiting arms. Some days that was the only thing that made getting out of bed worthwhile.

***  
 _Present Day_

Charles slid his phone in his jacket pocket. His rapid heartbeat sounded loud in his ears and he concentrated on family photographs on the wall to keep himself from being sick. Erik’s hunting knife lay in front of him on the table – Charles’s gift to Erik for their wedding. The engraving on the leather case - _A camping gift from your loving husband, so I can be with you always_ \- still looked fresh.

 

  
 

 

 

***

_1983_

Their wedding was very low-key. It had to be, in those days. It wasn’t a legally binding ceremony, there were no protections afforded to them in those days, but they’d still wanted to do something to show the world that they loved each other and would commit to each other for all their days. In the end they had invited Raven and her girlfriend Irene, Logan, Moira, the Summers brothers, Erik’s coworker Azazel, and Charles’s mother, who did not come. They rented a bowling alley and had a potluck. Moira had bought a cake at a local bakery, and Charles took great delight in smashing a piece in Erik’s face. Their vows were brief, and Charles couldn’t remember a thing he said, only that Erik didn’t take off for the hills when he was done. He did remember Erik taking his hands, smiling and tearful, and saying “I will do everything in my power to be the man you deserve.”

Shortly thereafter the stream of bodies dried up. All in all, there had been nine victims attributed to the unsub, all with blue eyes, and all with those eyes removed from their sockets. No one at the precinct knew what to make of the situation. Summers was convinced whomever was behind the murders had died or been arrested on an unrelated charge. Charles was less optimistic. He feared that the killer or killers had moved on to other pastures.

As it turned out, neither of them came close to the truth.

***

_Present Day_

Charles didn’t look away from the knife as he heard the front door open and shut softly, or when the telltale sounds of Erik’s tread drew close. Over the course of the past 32 years they had gotten to know the sounds of each other intimately well. Seven hours ago Charles would have argued that he knew everything there was to know about Erik, from the way he took his coffee to the way he held himself during a nightmare.

It was so easy, he thought, to blind yourself to the truth.

When Charles and Erik had first met, Erik would often go camping on the weekends. Charles offered to come, at first, after growing impatient for an invitation, but Erik always rebuffed his requests.

“It’s not anything against you, Charles. I just need the time alone.” Erik had finally explained. There was a time, early on, when he feared Erik used camping as an excuse to carry on with other men, would envision what he thought of as worst case scenarios with Erik writing in the arms of a younger, fitter partner, one not already losing hair or prone to back pain and migraines.

It was actually kind of funny, in retrospect, what Charles had considered to be a worst-case scenario.

Still, Charles had done his best to encourage Erik to do what he needed to do. He would track down forecasts for Erik’s projected camping weekends and leave them on notes with sweet nothings tacked to his tent. He made sure Erik’s gear was in good working order, and replaced Erik’s large dull and cracked hunting knife for their wedding. He had looked into what people in the industry found favorable and had made it special ordered by a family friend in the field.

Shortly after the wedding, when Charles noticed that Erik’s trips had all but stopped. It wasn’t anything they ever actually discussed. Charles didn’t want to ruin a good thing, and Erik clearly didn’t feel the need to elaborate why he chose to stay home. Nevertheless, Charles made sure to show Erik his approbation through lengthy kissing on the couch and spontaneous morning blowjobs.

Over the course of the past two years, however, shortly after his retirement from the engineering firm he’d started with Azazel, Erik had begun camping again. Charles offered to come again. He was worried – not about Erik falling into the arms of a young strapping man, but instead the dangers solitary trips to the remote woods would pose to men their age. Thirty years of marriage had tempered Charles’s insecurities and he knew Erik well enough to know he wouldn’t stray – despite the inevitable changes brought by time, it was flattering that Erik still found him attractive. No, these days Charles was worried about Erik’s ability to fend for himself in the woods after nearly thirty years of cushy city life.

Things were going well, though. Erik kept coming home whole and sound, and rejuvenated in a way Charles had missed from their youth. And, unexpectedly, Charles found he enjoyed time away from Erik as well. He loved his husband, bit after thirty years some alone time was not unwarranted.

Solitude was especially welcome when the first body was found near where Emma Frost had been found so many years before. The victim was a young man named Sebastian Shaw who had more than his fair share of enemies. So many of Charles’s colleagues from that time had retired or otherwise moved on, and he was the only leftover who remembered the desperate futile search for the killer who so abruptly disappeared thirty years prior. He fought both the Bureau and local law enforcement for authorization to investigate the case, but he knew the killer had resurfaced.

In some ways it felt like he had known the killer all his life.

He couldn’t fault people for refusing to believe him. Shaw had enemies. The killer hadn’t been heard from for nearly thirty years. Occam’s razor said Charles had to be barking up the wrong tree, seeing shadows where none existed. Charles himself knew it was a long shot, that it was at best coincidence. But there was something about the stab wounds…..

It had taken over two years, six more bodies, and a detailed analysis of the murder weapon before the penny dropped. Investigative techniques and equipment had come a long way since 1983, and although the killer hadn’t left much in terms of physical evidence, the weapons expert could say with certainty that the knife was unusual, like several different makes but matching none precisely.

It was likely custom made.

Somehow, that’s when Charles knew. Erik’s camping trips, the long lull that stopped when Erik had more time, the knife. The victims all had blue eyes. The only eyewitness accounts described a tall, thin man. The way Erik would always stand in the doorway, just staring at Charles sometimes, face pained. Charles had feared that Erik had been hiding bad news - that perhaps there was some medical issue that Erik was afraid or unwilling to share. Erik could be taciturn at the best of times, after all.

Charles was right, he supposed, in a manner of speaking.

***

“I wasn’t sure you’d come”, Charles said, breaking the silence.

“Of course I came. I’ll always come if you ask.” Erik’s voice was hoarse. Charles looked up, and that movement seemed to break the spell. In a moment Erik was at his side, on his knees in front of Charles, carefully holding Charles’s face in his hands.

“Charles,” he murmured, “you were never supposed to know. You were never supposed to be any part of this.” This close Charles couldn’t pretend not to see the red rimming Erik’s eyes or the wetness gathering on his lower lid.

“Are you going to kill me?”

“What? No. No, Charles. Never.” Erik’s face blanched and he buried his face in Charles’s lap. “Where would you get that idea?”

“It’s clear you have a type. Blue eyes? That was the first thing you mentioned to me, after we met. And I’m in your way now.” Charles laughed without humor. “Why couldn’t you just have left me for a Ferrari and a younger man?”

“I’d never, Charles. I love you.” Erik’s voice was muffled by Charles’s thighs. Charles’s own hand unconsciously stroked Erik’s steel hair.

“I know darling. You always did have to be difficult.” Charles spared a moment to hate himself as he clutched desperately to Erik’s strong forearms. Sobs welled up, fighting past his composure and without meaning to he let Erik gather him into well-loved arms and wept onto his husband’s shoulder, like he did when he found out about Raven and Irene all those years ago, lost to the carelessness of a drunk driver.

It shouldn’t have been comforting.

Erik murmured apologies into the shell of his ear, soft breath warming his scalp.

“Why? Why did you do this? Did…did this, us, mean nothing to you? I don’t understand.”

“Charles,” Erik chided, “you mean everything to me. I _stopped_ for you. I tried. You have no idea, Charles, how difficult that was.” Erik sighed heavily, and his eyes burned with a feverish joy. His smile was beatific, more peaceful than Charles had ever seen before. “I can’t explain it, it’s just. You’ve no idea. It’s a test, tracking them. Making sure I’m not seen. It’s…a thrill. Better than any hunt on the planet.”

“Hunters rarely remove their kill’s eyes.” For the first time, Erik looked uncomfortable.

“I’d rather not talk about this.”

“I deserve to know, Erik.” Keeping his voice level was a challenge.

“It was their eyes. I’d see them somewhere, on the street or in line at the coffee shop. They were like yours, only so _dull_ in comparison. That’s how I knew. Which ones to follow.” Erik smiled ruefully. “I thought I was being rather romantic, really.”

A shaky voice broke the silence, and Charles realized, belatedly, that it was his. “I trusted you. I _love_ you, goddammit. I should hate you, you prick.” His throat hurt with the effort it took to speak those words. Erik’s arms tightened around his back and the two simply held each other for a long, silent moment. “I have to turn you in, you know.”

“I know. I’m going to go quietly, Charles. I’ll tell them everything they want to know. I’ll – you weren’t part of this, I’ll make sure they know that.”

Charles couldn’t stop a burst of laughter from breaking through. “I’m done for after this, you know that. I’ll be lucky if I’m not arrested as an accomplice. Perhaps we can share a cell when everything is said and done.”

Erik shook his head sharply. “No, Charles. No, you won’t be touched by this. I promise. I’ll plead guilty to everything. There won’t be a trial.”

“Do you think for a minute that the FBI will accept that I didn’t know something? I’ve been with them longer than you, Erik. You never used to be naive. Either I helped you and am a criminal, or I had no idea the man I married killed fifteen people and am incompetent. The best I can hope for is early retirement, and that would only be offered for the agency to save face.”

Erik closed his eyes and sighed. When they opened, they held hard resolve. “You should have left me in the water. You must know I won’t stop you from filling for divorce.”

“What? What _are_ you talking about? Who said anything about a divorce? Are you asking for one?” Charles felt his face flush with resentment; different from the underlying confused sad anger he had felt all morning. “God dammit Erik, you cannot be doing this to me now-”

Erik held up placating hands. “No, Charles, I assumed, considering your position-”

“Lord knows I should, but.” He remembered the grief in Christian Frost’s face, Tony’s racking sobs and retirement from the public eye. So many lives, destroyed. “We’re losing everything else, Erik. I can’t lose this too.”

“You won’t. I promise you won’t.” Erik presses a kiss to the inside of Charles’s wrist as Charles pulls his phone out, dialing the number to his office. He has a call to make.

***

EPILOGUE

The months after Erik turned himself in were far more hectic than anything Erik or Charles had considered.

On the one hand, Erik was right. There was no trial. The FBI brought him in for questioning, and Charles knew they didn’t believe them, not at first. He overheard some of the younger recruits theorizing that Erik was in the early stages of dementia, or that he made up the stories for attention. The knife, along with evidence Erik had kept for all these years, quickly convinced them otherwise.

There was no trial, but that didn’t stop the media from forming a circus. After all, the Killer and his FBI Husband was a salacious story. Charles was by turn a scheming killer using the FBI to cover his husband’s tracks, an incompetent patsy blinded by lust - proof that homosexuals were somehow immoral by nature - or Erik’s greatest victim. Maybe they were all true.

Charles had done his best to ensure that for his cooperation, Erik was sentenced to fifteen life sentences instead of death. When Howlett found out, he came down to the courthouse and punched Charles in the face. Charles supposed he deserved it. Erik had been livid when he found out. Charles wanted to ask him what exactly he thought would happen when the news broke, but restrained himself. His husband was never the best at seeing the long-term consequences. Obviously.

Charles sighed as he pulled up to the visitor entrance. By now he knew the routine, had established a rapport with the guards. Four hours a month wasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough, but. They both had to atone for their choices.

And when he entered the room and saw Erik, tired and hurt but not broken, he couldn’t convince himself that he could have done anything differently.

 

 

 


End file.
